The Wild One Page 4

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Are you kidding? Best news ever. I thought my boss was going to have an aneurysm. He’s such a dick. And I’m not even tired anymore. I just want to get hammered.”

  Julie turns to Angie and Pia.

  “I want a full makeover for the gig tonight, I want a montage to cheesy music, and I want to pregame. It’s the weekend. Fivies!”

  “Party Julia is here!” shouts Angie happily. “You can start with this.”

  She hands over her martini, and Julia takes a slug and chokes.

  “That is disgusting. I’ll have a beer.”

  “I’m not drinking. I have to rest my voice,” says Madeleine. “Yes. It’s a thing.”

  Pia reaches out, takes Angie’s martini, and tips all of it back into her mouth. She hands back the empty glass and smiles. “Okay, ladybitches. Let’s have some goddamn fun.”

  CHAPTER 6

  As you might expect from a group of twenty-something girls, we spend the early part of the evening on an extended makeover session in Angie’s room, with alcohol. I mostly watch until Angie suddenly grabs me and puts bright red Chanel lipstick on my lips.

  “It looks amazing on you,” Angie says when I protest. “You have perfect skin and teeth, and the best lips I have ever seen. Red lipstick should be part of your signature look.”

  “What’s my signature look?” asks Julia.

  “Corporate whore,” says Angie.

  “Better than fashion victim,” Julia shoots back.

  “I am many things, sweetie, but I am never a victim.” Angie smiles.

  “Would you two stop flirting?” Madeleine rolls her eyes.

  “Holy shit.” Julia looks at herself in the mirror. “I would totally bang me, if I was a dude. Do you think I should wax my—”

  “Whatever the end of that sentence is, the answer is almost certainly no,” says Angie. “There is nothing wrong with a little grass on the playing field, understand?”

  “Since when do you like pubic hair?” asks Pia.

  “Since I realized it’s fucking weird to make my vagina look like it did when I was eight.”

  Everyone ruminates on this for a moment. It is weird, when you think about it like that. But I just waxed myself in the bathroom with one of those home kits I bought ages ago. I don’t even know why I did it, it’s just … that’s what you do. You know?

  “Isn’t it … cleaner?” Pia speaks up tentatively.

  “If you think it’s dirty, then you have issues, ladybitch. Vaginas are perfect. Dudes don’t wax their balls, and yet they ask us to nuzzle up to them at the drop of a damn hat.”

  Everyone pauses again, I guess to think about nuzzling hairy balls. Retch.

  “Fine.” Pia sighs. “I’ll stop waxing. There’s no one to notice anyway, since my boyfriend lives in another time zone and I never get laid.”

  “You know, I never get laid either,” Julia points out. “Sex is not like water, you won’t, like, die without it.”

  “I am so sick of talking about how much sex everyone is getting or not getting,” says Madeleine. “Come on. I need to get to Potstill so I can set up with the band.”

  As we walk to the bar, the girls talk on and on about Aidan and Sam and sex, and my mind turns to my big Ethan plan for this evening. I feel my stomach lurch with nerves. Maybe I’ll secretly text Ethan and cancel. I don’t think I can go through with it, I really don’t.

  But I have to, I remind myself strictly. It’s the first step toward being the new me. The wild me.

  I’ve walked by Potstill a hundred times and never gone in. In the rich and varied landscape of Brooklyn bars and, more specifically, South Brooklyn bars, Potstill is … well, it’s a dump.

  It’s dirty, for a start, with dusty smeared windows and cracked windowsills, and not in a charming Wild West kind of way, just in a forgotten kind of way. I don’t think it’s changed since the early ’80s, at least. Most places around Gowanus have been hipsterfied by now, but Potstill is still—almost refreshingly—a total dive.

  The front part of Potstill is very narrow, opening up to a weird cavernous space at the back where Madeleine’s band is setting up. There’s a bottle-crammed bar along one wall, and the whole thing is lit by harsh fluorescent bulbs, making everyone look sallow and dull. The walls are green and entirely bare apart from a handful of askew photos of the bar in its heyday thrown up haphazardly in cheap rusted frames.

  We walk into the bar and pause, taking it all in.

  “What a dump,” comments Angie.

  “Maddy, shouldn’t you go help the band set up?” says Julia.

  “I can’t…” Suddenly, Madeleine can hardly speak. “I’m so nervous. All I can do is drink coffee, but I think I overdid it. Look.” Madeleine holds up a visibly shaking hand. “Ugh. I feel sick.”

  “Eat some salty potato chips,” says Julia. “Sodium works to counteract the caffeine, and the carbs release serotonin to calm your adrenals. They have some in the bodega on the corner.”

  “Is that true?” asks Pia, as Madeleine runs off to the bodega to find potato chips.

  “I made it up,” says Julia. “I figure it’s probably all in her head, right? So if she thinks she’s calmer, she’ll be calmer … anyway, fuck, potato chips won’t kill her. She’s too goddamn skinny.”

  Madeleine’s band is called Spector. It does hard rock covers of girl group classics from the 1960s, you know, stuff from the Supremes and the Ronettes. Maddy was with another band, but after she stepped in to help out Spector at a gig a few months ago, they recruited her, and that was that. Kind of funny how she’s an accountant by day and a singer by night, huh? It’s like she’s leading a double life.

  “I feel so much better,” says Madeleine when she returns, stuffing chips in her mouth. “Maybe that was just nerves. The owner of this place, Gary, also has two bars in Williamsburg. If he likes us, we could get a regular gig with him. But I bet no one even turns up … Amy is going to be pissed.”

  Amy is the guitar player and unofficial leader of the band, a tall girl with pink hair and black-red lipstick who scares the crap out of me. She’s been over to Rookhaven a few times to rehearse with Madeleine.

  “Mad! Thank God! I need you!” calls Amy, and Madeleine skips back to where Amy is setting up with Hoff, a stoner/guitar player that was in Maddy’s old band too, and Drum, their imaginatively nicknamed drummer.

  “Where the hell is the bartender?” says Angie, sitting down on a rickety barstool. “And how shitty is this joint?”

  “Very,” says Julia, taking a seat next to her and pulling a mismatched stool over for me. “Shitty McShitterson.”

  Looking around, I frown. I don’t think it’s that shitty. The actual bar itself, you know, where the drinks are mixed, is kind of cool. Very old but beautiful wood, with cracked varnish worn down from years of drinking. It’s the crappy green walls and the falling-down plasterboard ceiling that’s the real problem. It’s just a bit dirty, and not cozy or welcoming. And it’s too hot and the lighting is just way too bright and white to flatter anyone.

  Okay. Maybe it needs a little work.

  “It’s not old enough to be old-school-adorable shitty and not new enough to be hipster-chic shitty,” says Pia.

  “It’s not even ironically shitty,” says Angie. “It’s just … it’s a piece of shitty shit.”

  “Thanks, ladies,” speaks up a deep voice, seemingly from nowhere, and we all shriek.

  A guy appears from practically underneath the bar. Very tall. Messy dark hair. Stubble. Eyes that are too bloodshot to see what color they are.

  Pia and Angie shriek again, enjoying their hysteria. I think they’re a little tipsy from our makeover drinks.

  “Jesus,” the guy says, pronouncing it Jaysus. “I’ll get you a drink if you promise to stop screaming. And stop swearing. You’re like drunk sailors.”

  “Yes, sir,” says Angie obediently.

  “We’ll have three vodka, lime, and sodas, please, young man,” says Pia.
She must be a little drink to be flirting like that.

  “This is a whiskey bar.” His accent is Irish maybe, or Scottish, I can never tell the difference. “I can offer you a whiskey, more specifically an Irish whiskey, or a whiskey-based cocktail. Or beer. But beer is boring, don’t you agree?”

  “Beer is cheap, you mean,” says Pia, arching her eyebrow. The bartender winks at her.

  “Here,” he says, grabbing some shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey. “Let’s drink these and see what happens. On the house.”

  Pia and Angie glance at each other and shrug. “Sure thing.”

  We all do the shot, including the scruffy bartender. He smiles wolfishly as we all make the predictable “oh, my God WHISKEY!” sounds.

  “Tell you what, sugarnuts, why don’t you rustle up a whiskey cocktail surprise for us,” says Angie. “Something refreshing that’ll take the edge off.”

  “You got it, princess. But the name is Joe Nolan. Not sugarnuts.”

  “Right on.” Angie is looking at her phone now, ignoring poor Joe entirely. I guess when all guys give you special attention, you don’t need to care.

  “Are you from Ireland, Joe?” asks Pia politely.

  “Ireland by birth, Cork by the grace of God,” Joe deadpans, grabbing bottles and ice and glasses, moving with the fast efficiency of a professional. He slices, pours, and shakes with a sort of cool, detached precision, and we all find ourselves mesmerized, watching him.

  “My boyfriend is half Irish,” Pia says. “But he didn’t grow up there.”

  “Poor bastard,” says Joe. “Ripped from the motherland.” He glances at Angie to see if she’s listening. She’s not. He slams down four icy-cold mason jars full of a pale yellow liquid. “Cold Hard Toddies.”

  “What’s in this?” says Pia, sniffing it.

  “Jameson Irish whiskey, apple cider, ice, lemon, and a slice of apple.”

  “Mason jar. Nice touch,” says Pia.

  I see her make a note in her phone: Mason jars. Recyclable. Discount on next order when you bring it back. Pia is always working. I can’t imagine loving a job that much.

  We all take a swig of the Cold Hard Toddy. It tastes worryingly unalcoholic. The kind of drink that you devour with thirsty abandon and then realize you can’t see straight. Or think straight. Or walk straight.

  “May I please have a glass of water?” I ask, but I’m drowned out by Pia and Angie.

  “That is amazing!”

  “What’s in it again?”

  “Whiskey, cider, apple, lemon. Do you want me to write it down?” Joe fills up a glass with ice and water, handing it to me.

  “Thanks,” I say in surprise. I didn’t think he heard me. He’s barely taken his eyes off Pia and Angie, with the kind of lazy grin that you see only on New York City guys who have a lot of casual sex.

  “I’m going to the stockroom,” says Joe. “Can you girls be trusted not to steal from the bar?”

  Angie shrugs, eyes still on her phone. “You think we think this place made more than ten bucks today? Let’s be realistic.”

  “Harsh,” mutters Joe, walking away.

  Julia turns to me. “Coco, let’s talk about your future career.”

  I sigh. “Oh, let’s not.”

  Angie snorts, but Julia can’t be dissuaded that easily.

  “I was thinking about it on the walk here. You’ll get another job easily,” she says. “You just need a regular babysitting gig over the summer and to apply to more preschools by the end of August. Let’s get you on one of those sitter sites. I’ll help you write a killer résumé and set up all the interviews.”

  “Julia…” I don’t want to be rude, but I really don’t want my sister to “fix” this situation for me in that loving bossy way. She’ll just tell me what she thinks is best without wondering what I want.

  Then Julia smiles at me so nicely, and I suddenly realize she doesn’t know how bossy she is being. She genuinely thinks she’s helping.

  It’s not like she’s being unreasonable either. Working with children is what I am trained to do. But the idea of spending the next few months babysitting, shepherding someone else’s children through the scorching New York summer, from park to pool to playdate, makes me feel very tired. And then back to a preschool? For how long? The rest of my life?

  “I don’t think … I don’t think that’s I want,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “Working in a preschool, I mean. I don’t want that.”

  I’m supposed to be the opposite of old Coco, right? That means speaking my mind. I clear my throat, and my voice comes out stronger.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do, Julia, but I know it won’t be that.”

  “Okay, well, let’s think about what you do want to do, then,” says Julia. Always Little Miss Fix-it.

  Pia grabs her phone, ready to make notes. “I’ll help! What are your strengths and weaknesses? Let’s brainstorm.”

  “Fucking brainstorming…” mutters Angie.

  My strengths?

  I stare at them all, my mind a blank.

  I don’t have any strengths. I don’t have any skills or talents or dreams or brains. I’m just me.

  But I can’t say that, they’d just think I have low self-esteem, and I really don’t. I’m just realistic about my potential, i.e., it doesn’t exist.

  “Do you ever get the feeling Coco’s doing all her talking in her head?” asks Angie.

  “Yep,” says Pia. She turns to me. “You like baking. How about a pastry chef?”

  “Um, no,” I say. “That’s just a hobby.” I don’t say it aloud, but can you imagine how much I would weigh if I did that for a living? I know it’s stupid, but that alone puts me off it.

  “I didn’t think anyone had a hobby since the Internet was invented,” says Angie. “What about reading? I’ve never known anyone to read as much as you.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t get paid to read books.”

  “You could be a librarian!” Pia says excitedly.

  “I’m pretty sure libraries are an endangered species,” says Julia. “They’re all closing.”

  “Wow, that’s depressing,” I groan.

  Some of my best childhood memories are getting books from the library with my mom. I was so impatient that I always started reading them in the car on the way home, my cheek resting against the warmth of the seat belt, trying to ignore the sick tummy I always got reading in a moving vehicle …

  The memory of that feeling is so strong that I have to put my hands on the worn wood of the bar to remind myself where I am. I wonder if it’s weird that I can remember my childhood so well. It’s almost like I feel so close to my past that I can’t accept that this life is my reality. Grown up and living in New York City, drinking in bars, unemployed and only qualified to do a job I hate, treated like shit by every guy I meet, with a long life ahead of me with nothing but more of the same in store … My God, I am tired.

  “You like watching E!” says Angie, interrupting my reverie. God, she’s right, I really do all my talking in my head. “Want to be a celebrity journalist?”

  I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak without crying.

  “Try this!” says Pia. “Close your eyes. Picture yourself in five years. Where are you? What are you doing?”

  I close my eyes. Me in five years. Me, age twenty-six. At first, my mind is empty, blurry, messy … Then an image starts to form. At first I see Rookhaven, and the kitchen, and everyone else … but then I appear, curled up in a leather armchair, next to an open window, reading a book and sipping a mug of hot chocolate. My hair is longer, and I’m smiling while I read. The image is so clear, so real, that for a second I wonder if I’m imagining it or if it’s from a movie or something. But no, it’s me. It’s really me.

  My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of Julia noisily getting down from her stool.

  “I don’t think we should make any decisions about your future until we talk to Dad. Right! I’m gonna drain the dragon.”
>
  “You don’t have a dragon,” says Pia.

  “Joe!” Angie slams her empty mason jar back on the bar. “Ten out of ten on the Cold Hard Toddy. What else do you have for us?”

  “Anything you want, sweetheart.”

  “Joe, you’re going to have to stop this flirting,” says Angie matter-of-factly. “I have a boyfriend with whom I am desperately, passionately in love.”

  “And where is the lucky man tonight?”

  “He’s sailing in the Greek islands,” says Angie.

  Joe starts to laugh, then stops. “Sorry. I thought you were joking.” He hands a drink over and Angie takes a big swig. “Amazing. Whiskey Sour?”

  “With cassis,” says Joe. “It’s called a Sour Blush. Sweetness with an edge.” He catches me looking at him and winks, and I quickly look away. Goddamnit. Why am I so self-conscious around guys? Especially the cool, self-confident, player kind of guys?

  The band starts the sound check, and I take a moment to head to the bathroom.

  Julia was right, Potstill is a total dump. The bathroom is down a dark hallway leading to a storeroom, and it’s tiny and dingy as hell: two toilet cubicles behind doors barely hanging on to their hinges, a cracked sink, a dirty mirror, once-white grimy tiles, and a single hanging lightbulb. It stinks of cheap bleach, and the toilet seats look older than I am.

  Ew. This is going to be a squat-and-hover pee.

  I undo my jeans and go to peel them down, along with my underwear, you know, like you do.

  But I can’t. My jeans will come down, but my underwear is stuck.

  What the heck?

  Yanking them harder, I immediately squeal in pain. They won’t budge.

  I try again to yank, pull, and peel them off, but it’s no good. They are soldered firmly to my … to my sugar, as Julia would say. To my ladygarden, my cha-cha, my fifi, my hoohoo, my, oh to hell with it, let’s just be direct: my vagina.

  They’re not just stuck to the front either, but the entire thing … the undercarriage.

  How on earth could that have—

  Oh, my God.

  I used that home bikini wax kit before I came out. And I guess I didn’t use it properly.